First living human cells added to brain database

Fresh human brain tissue is a vanishingly rare resource for neuroscientists. Now, data on small bits of live human brain tissue that normally get discarded during surgery are being added to a publicly available database that could help to unravel how cognition works. researchers at the Allen Institute for Brain Science in Seattle, Washington, announced that they had published their first data from living human brain cells.

The images and information now added to the database will let researchers analyse the molecular content of individual living cells, or neurons, and, ultimately, identify the biological basis of their behaviour. Until now, the database had contained information only about mouse brains.

The first slew of human data includes the electrical properties of 300 different types of neuron from 36 people, along with 3D reconstructions of the spidery shapes of some of them, and computer models that simulate their electrical behaviour. It also includes gene-expression profiles of 16,000 individual cells from the brains of another 3 people. Scientists around the world may now compare these data with those from mice to generate hypotheses about where key differences lie.

The Allen Institute now plans to increase the number of human brain cells in its database and the amount of information available from each of them. It aims eventually to include full RNA profiles to indicate which genes are active in the tissue. The next phase will also analyse the connections between the cells. However, the work cannot be as comprehensive as studies of mouse brains, because only small pieces of living human brains can be removed, whereas the whole brains of mice can be examined.

Source: nature